Borderline Arc II: Turn
by Yamino Tenshi 202
Summary: Danny looked up. The person, the boy that floated about three feet in front of him had the same voice as the one that had spoken in his head before. He had a black Hazmat suit with white gloves, belt, boots and accent about his neck. An exact opposite of him. "Phantom?" And the blood around them fell and Danny was stuck looking at eyes of fire. (Eventual Pitch Pearl)
1. Turn

A/N: Here marks where the story ties in with the Danny Phantom series itself.

This arc holds slight spoilers for various novels (such as 1984) and films. I have attempted to keep these as ambiguous as possible. These are only to keep things contemporary with our time, as the show takes place in the U.S. in a relatively modern (mid-2000s, if not futuristic) setting.

* * *

Book 2 – Turn

* * *

2012

Danny collapsed onto the lab floor. It was only chance that he fell that way and didn't fall out of the Portal into the Ghost Dimension, or the Ghost Zone as his parents called it.

Perhaps the story would be different if he had fallen the other way.

That's not the way we want it;

Thus, it shall not occur.

Sam held a hand up to her mouth in fright. Tucker looked to his friend on the floor and then to the machines running the Portal. All of the levels were normal, the machine stable. It wouldn't be short-circuiting, from what he could tell. He went forward and pulled Danny from the machine. Sam continued to stand in shock.

Their friend's scream had been terrifying, a shrill wail like that of a murder victim from a movie that they had seen, just as the knife dug into her chest. What pain, what intense power, had been coursing through him to make that din erupt from his throat?

"What happened to his hair?" He asked the question out loud, his voice surprising him in its even tone… He did not sound as frightened as he felt.

Sam came forward and helped Tucker turn Danny to his back, a shuddering sigh releasing itself from her lungs as she saw his chest go up and down.

"I don't know, but… He's breathing!" She let a small smile grace her face. "He's alive, Tucker!"

Danny coughed and made a small groan, his eyes closing tighter as though Sam was too loud. Then again…

He shouldn't have heard anything, if his plan had gone correctly. But it had not.

Danny opened his eyes blearily, though he felt as though this was not the real world. Instead he was in an area where there was no scent, distance, or even depth. He was in a place that simply was. The best he could describe it as was an endless plane of white with a floor and ceiling that were invulnerable to being measured. He looked down at himself. His Hazmat suit was still its white with black accents pattern. Hadn't it been reverse earlier?

_**That would have been my suit.**_

Danny looked up. The person, the boy that floated about three feet in front of him had the same voice as the one that had spoken in his head before. He had a black Hazmat suit with white gloves, belt, boots and accent about his neck.

An exact opposite of him.

_Phantom?_ He asked, and the world made itself more apparent to him. He did not speak here, or not as he normally did. His mouth opened and his throat vibrated as he normally would, but it was not as loud as the words pushing themselves out of his mind.

_**Yes.**_

_Phantom, what happened? Where are we?_

The spirit – that's what he assumed – bit his lip, as though unsure.

_You don't know, do you?_

_**My many apologies, but I don't know.** _Phantom shook his head.

_I figured._ Danny sighed. He raised a hand to his face and rubbed at his eyes, letting the cool pads of his fingertips touch his eyelids. The feeling was soothing, letting his troubled mind focus on something else for a few moments, rather than think about-

_**Am I stress-inducing?** _Danny opened his eyes and Phantom was only inches away from him. The fourteen-year-old jumped back, stumbling and falling on his backside.

_N-No! Just don't surprise me like that!_ He laughed lightly at the look of concern in the ghost's eyes. All of his previous thoughts disappeared.

_**What is that?** _He heard Phantom ask and Danny looked up to see something shining in the white space around them. Several shining objects surrounded them and quickly multiplied. Danny turned a bit to stand and stared at Phantom's hand as its owner offered it. After a few moments, he grabbed it and stood up.

_I don't know…_

Danny reached towards one of the objects and gently touched its surface. It was like a crystal, the kind hung on chandeliers… It was a wonderful golden colour. He tried to close his fingers around it, but it would not let him, slipping out between the cracks of his fingers before remerging and returning to its original form.

Phantom hummed softly before reaching for another crystal, a blue one. A silver one danced playfully next to it.

_**Are these belonging to one of us? Or both?** _Suddenly the gems began to shift through the air, moving to opposing sides of the white space. Many went to one side, while only one remained on the other. It shone brightly, a brilliant torch that made the white space surrounding it look dim.

Danny had only the first one that he had captured by him. He reached for it again and stared at it.

_**What's going on?**_

Danny reached for one of the gems among the multitude and he could feel his mom's hand smoothing back his hair, soothing whispers coming from her as Danny felt so ill.

Danny hadn't been ill like that in years. Pulling back his hand, he felt nostalgia as he gazed at many of the gems.

_Our memories?_

Danny and Phantom both looked to the lone crystal, a silver one, which began to be accompanied with some others. Danny felt nothing from it, but he saw how the ghost looked at in with the same sense of nostalgia and longing he felt.

Silver, green, black, and gold all over Phantom's side began to shine.

_It's filling up._

Danny sighed.

_All right._ He turned to the ghost. _We'll have to figure this out, working together. It feels like you're going to be here with me for a while._

Phantom nodded. He reached out to Danny, the human grasping his hand and a jolt of energy sparking between them. Danny made a note to check out what it was later.

_**You should wake up. I think Samantha and Tucker are calling for you.**_

Danny closed his eyes and tried to see himself waking up in the lab, trying to get the same sensation that one would feel when trying to shake themselves from a nightmare.

Phantom stayed silent as Danny faded from the memory plane, finally alone.

* * *

He sat down and smiled, mourning over a pain that had happened too long ago to really matter but still too fresh to ever heal.

The Birth of Beatrice into the human world was a tragic thing, as it had been only the beginning of a grand chaos.

He began to write on the new, milk-white page, his blue eyes scanning its blankness as it was reduced by the strokes of his pen.

_**Dear reader,**_

_**One may be confused in reading the tale of this boy. After all, what impact could a simple boy have on the universe, a Universe other than his own?**_

_**Reader, we may laugh in amusement as you are stumbling over the twists and turns of the importance of the introductions of this tale. You may criticise the way in which the story is told. After all, what better place to begin telling a story than the beginning? If we were to tell you that a person was angry, you would ask what led up to that emotion. That does not mean that the End justifies the Means, or vice versa.**_

_**You shall have different readers, already introduced to you.**_

_**They read you their bastardized form of Shakespeare; did you read it carefully?**_

_**Their words are**_ underlined _**like so.**_

_**They shall guide you through the tale. The question is: are they telling you the story as it happens, before it has occurred, or after all of the events have transpired? Maybe it's just a bedtime story.**_

_**Stay wary, reader, as people that lose their way, have a very hard time grabbing the Spider Web they need to climb up to Paradise again.**_

- 芯身つ

He set down the book and held his head in his hands.

"Papa?" He turned to see his son toddling over to him from the doorway. The tot was bleary-eyed and his pyjamas were loose about his body. "Papa, what are you doing?"

"... A script, just for you."


	2. Mystery Meat

Chapter 01 – Mystery Meat

* * *

Jack smiled down at his son and his friends. "So, Danny. You and your little friends want to hunt ghosts."

"Ah, actually, Dad? I wanna be an astronaut." Danny raised a hand shyly. Sam spoke, dismissing ghosts as a common fad, one too common for her interests. Tucker waved off the idea as well, regarding his looks and charisma as much more valuable. They were individuals and would not be as strongly persuaded as Danny could be, especially when considering the fact that despite their closeness, their dreams for the future had no common ties, as they were not siblings.

**The missing thing.**

"Well, if you do want to hunt ghosts," Jack said, turning to the lab table behind him. "There are a few things you need to learn."

Danny fought his first ghosts, initially seeing his own breath and alerting him that the ghosts were coming, as they came through the Ghost Portal. His father never saw it at all.

_Thank goodness. What would have happened if they saw?_

**_… What would happen had they seen, your parents?_**

_… They'd probably dissect us._

**_Scary._**

_Or maybe not?_

Phantom stayed silent after that, wondering what Danny could have meant by that.

* * *

**What was fear?**

* * *

"I think I should tell them." Danny, Sam, and Tucker were in school, walking up to the second floor of the building.

"Why?" Sam asked with an almost disgusted tone, sharpening her tongue into a useful knife, as they continued to walk. "Parents don't listen. Even worse, they don't understand." She closed her eyes as they settled themselves onto the landing and stood for a moment. "Why can't they accept me for who I am?!"

"Sam, we're talking about my powers," Danny said, gesturing to himself with his thumb. "My problems?"

**_I'm a problem?_**

_No, just your powers seeping into my human body is the problem. You're fine._

**_… Okay._**

"Oh, right," she covered awkwardly, mumbling slightly. "Me, too."

Danny sighed heavily.

"It's been a month since the Accident and I still have barely any control!" His heart began to race a bit and he did not notice himself sinking into the floor as he spoke, "If somebody catches me, I go from 'Geek' to 'Freak' around here!"

Tucker raised his eyes and looked somewhat nonchalantly at his friend. "Kinda like what you're doing right now?"

Danny looked down and cried out, lifting his arms in surprise. Sam and Tucker grabbed him and lifted him up, his body from the waist down completely invisible until a few seconds later, his feet touching the floor like nothing happened.

"Oh, darn it." He hurried up the next flight of stairs, grabbing his head. He had a headache coming on. He needed his pills. "If my dad could invent something that accidentally made me half-ghost, why can't he invent something that turns me back to normal?" His powers activated themselves again, making him pass through the vending machine that he would have walked right into.

**_I helped!_**

_Ugh… Thanks, I guess._

Sam frowned and went to Danny, catching up and moving to stand in front of him. She saw the other return back to his tangible, visible state before speaking. "Danny, your powers make you unique. Unique is good." She placed her hands on her hips with pride. "That's why I'm an Ultra-Recyclo Vegetarian."

Tucker blinked. "She's a what?"

Danny answered him. "She doesn't eat anything with a face on it."

Tucker flaunted off his love and knowledge of meat, while Sam brought up her proposition to the teacher board.

The next ghost that Danny fought had Sam on a hit-list, as Danny saw it, for changing the menu from the school cafeteria. They had walked inside the kitchen, hoping that she wanted to do something peaceful rather than hurt anyone.

"Hello, children. Can you help me?" the Lunch Lady asked politely. She had the uniform of a Casper High School cafeteria worker, so she had probably worked here a long time ago when the school did not require hair-nets. "Today's lunch is meatloaf, but I don't see the meatloaf." She spoke one last time with a somewhat hopeful smile on her face. "Did someone change the menu?"

Tucker nodded. "Yeah, she did," he replied, pointing at Sam.

"You changed the menu?!" The Lunch Lady grew and her red eyes, menacing and full of fury, seemed to shrink. Green energy – her ectoplasm, it seemed – became flames in the air and encircled her, her power magnifying.

_Well, shit._

**_Well said._**

* * *

Several ghost fights later with the Lunch Lady resulted in Danny turning back into his human form, Sam and Tucker safe and away from the angry female ghost. He fainted, his energy gone from turning intangible, invisible, and even contorting his form. His friends carried him home.

They stepped through the door to Fentonworks, as casually as they could, taking Danny up to his room.

Why on Earth would they think that Danny's sister Jazz would be a ghost?

* * *

Danny wished that his friends wouldn't fight in front of him. It reminded him too much of how his parents fought so often when he was a child, how they separated, and how…

_I was not lonely._

**_You sound like you were._**

Danny sighed softly to himself, watching Tucker leave to "go get the meat back" and Sam rushing to stop him.

**_They're pleasant overall._**

_Yeah._

"Oh, well. I'm sure everything will be back to normal by tomorrow." He stood up and stretched, going to get his backpack off of the floor and to do his homework.

**_… Danny._**

_What?_

Phantom, inside of Danny's body in such a way that could only be described as One, pulled himself as far as he could from the other's body, only an energy around Danny, and hugged him. It was an almost non-existent touch, comforting and cool against the boy's warm skin. Strange it was that these two, lone spirits that could not be understood by others, whether by fate or nothing that could be understood, could complete each other. They were becoming very good friends and it was wonderful to know that there was someone there at night to keep the other safe. Whether from nightmares or sad thoughts, they could be brushed away. That is what Phantom felt.

Danny felt the same. After a childhood of uncertainties, this little miracle, a friend that did not judge him or express their firm ideas through yelling, attempting to impress them upon him, was special to him. It was all he wanted… aside from seeing his real parents again, but that was fickle. Companionship was above all his goal.

**It takes two.**

**Sleeping with someone you care about keeps away monsters at night and it gives you dreams about the other person.**

**How nice it must be to have that!**

* * *

Danny really did not expect his friends' protests to be spoiled by the Lunch Lady. He kind of wanted to see Meat-Eaters fight with their barbecue spatulas against the Veggie-Lovers' classic picket signs.

**_That'd be fun to watch._**

_… It would be_, he thought somewhat guiltily, though that thought was chased away when he completely registered the situation and decided to go ghost.

_**That sounds like a catch-phrase… Let's use it.**_

_How about later?_

* * *

_**… A soup container… Captured the ghost…**_

_Yep. Something my Dad actually works. Kudos to Dad._

Danny hurried over to Sam, buried in meat.

"What happened? Where's the ghost?" She looked bewildered. Danny held up the sleek metal container. Tucker had a flash of recognition in his eyes. The Fenton Thermos had been shown to him and Sam when Mr Fenton had shown them the Fenton Portal.

"My parents have their moments." Danny smiled.

"_Ghost directly ahead…_" The three teens turned and saw Jack and Maddie approaching them, the Ghost Finder in hand. The device was pointing at Danny as it had the previous day.

"Sorry, Dad. You just missed him." Danny pointed behind him, showing them the way the ghost went.

"We got a runner!"

As she watched Danny's parents take off, Sam turned to the black-haired boy. "So you're not going to tell them?"

"No." He felt Phantom's contentment swell. The ghost really did not want to be away from him. "I think I finally figured out what these powers are for."

Aside from the mandatory clean-up duty that they were assigned to, Danny was happy.

He had Purpose, even if it was a purpose that he had once mocked superheroes for doing.

Magic was not just for entertainment; it was to better one's self. He and Phantom had merged for the better, not the self-indulging. Fighting ghosts was hard, but it wasn't frightening.

It wasn't frightening at all.

* * *

**What was fear?**

**It's the feeling that you get when you see the Unknown, the Strange, the Incredible, the Different, the Unique, and the Incomprehensible.**

**It's not of this world.**

**So it must be a Ghost.**


	3. What You Want

Chapter 02 – What You Want

* * *

When he and Tucker were at the little fair in town, or rather a bazaar, Danny had not expected a genie-esque ghost to literally come out of a lamp. The ground below him as he flew was covered in a stormy sea of cotton candy.

_**Candy floss?**_

_Were you British before you died?_

_**No. I lived around here, I think**__._

"I am Desiree," the ghost said, her form quite beautiful. Danny realised that her name was a pun on the word 'desire' and, his hormonal teenage mind be damned, he could see why she would be named Desiree.

She looked to be from the Middle East in times of royalty or from India in a place Danny could akin to the Taj Mahal. She had bangles on her wrists and a hair ornament that went around her head, like a headband. Her midriff showed her pale green skin and her… womanly charm was exposed somewhat, the cleavage of her breasts showing. Her long black hair was exotic and appeared to be so silky, the sun-light bending to make it look ironically alive, opposed to her eyes, blood-red and excited.

**Freedom is indeed wasted on the living.**

She placed her hands together in a symbol of servitude. "What is your wish?"

If he wasn't ticked off by the fact that everything was covered in sugary cotton, he would have blushed. "None of your business, candy pants."

Desiree frowned, looking dejected. This was her Purpose, granting wishes. Why should this child deny her this, her Purpose?

"Surely, there must be something…" She reached out to him, her hand a bare nail – about 2 inches – from his chest.

Danny could not react, her words and expression distracting him. Phantom could, though. He projected his energy out and took control of Danny's right arm and voice.

"Hey, get away!" He did not know how he knew, nor did he quite understand how his body produced the energy, but a small orb of ectoplasmic energy formed in Danny's hand, leaving his body invisibly only to reappear in the form of that orb, in the form of a weapon.

An object used for malice…

He pulled Danny's arm back and threw it forward, the energy leaving his hand in the form of a beam. It hit Desiree squarely in her torso, sending her back with its unrestrained force. She screamed as she was pushed away, far enough that Danny didn't see her at one point.

Danny blinked. "What the heck?" He pulled his hand in front of him, his eyes focused on the glowing green energy that surrounded the appendage. "What's going on?

… _**Oops?**_

_It's fine… How did you do that?_

_**I don't know.**_

"Is this…" Danny wondered out loud. "A new ghost power?"

Malice, the ultimate weapon…

"That was slamming!" Tucker yelled up at his friend. As Danny floated back down, he continued. "Whatever that was. You got another power?"

"I guess." Danny remained above the ground, holding his hand up. It wasn't hot or anything; the energy was actually kind of cold.

"Man, see, that's the cool thing about your powers, man. There's no downside!" Tucker raised his hand up in excitement. "Give me five!"

Danny raised his hand, but he didn't expect Tucker to be blasted away with the ectoplasmic ray.

_Phantom?_

_**I guess some energy was still in your hand?**_

_We'll figure it out._

"I'm okay!" Tucker yelled, his body in the cotton candy again. The tarp over him ripped and spilled more spun sugar onto his body.

* * *

That night, Danny volunteered to sub in for the Casper High Ravens' mascot. The guy never got to see the games in the stand and it would be nice to do.

He didn't expect Dash Baxter to turn into a monster or for Tucker to end up in the raven suit… like he usually was. That Desiree was just causing more problems than her beautiful was worth.

_**Is she really that pretty?**_ Phantom voiced his thoughts as Danny put the ghost that had possessed Dash into the Ghost Zone.

_Shut up. _Danny looked around the lab. It was warm in the lab today, a sweat hut set up in a back corner. It reminded Danny of a Native American abode. Strange.

As the ghost disappeared into the green vortex and the doors closed, Danny flew back towards his room, only to pass through the new invention his parents had made. It wasn't painful…

… Just very unsettling.

_**Danny!**_

_Phant-?_

"Whoa!" Danny cried out as he fell. The floor was so hard, its tiles cold against his cheek. He opened his eyes and saw green eyes staring back at him. "Huh?"

The ghost stared back at him and then went back into his body. Phantom let his energy spread again and Danny let out a shuddering breath, fear running through his blood.

That was frightening.

Not the fact that a ghost was technically possessing him, but that he could have lost his friend. He'd be alone again.

"Ahchoo!"

* * *

"Ahchoo!" Sam curled up deeper into her blankets, her skin so pale and her body sweating, attempting to purify itself of its ills. "Ugh! I feel like I'm gonna die. I hate being sick."

Danny held the phone to his ear as he heard his friend sneeze again. "Hang it there, Sam. Tucker and I are gonna come visit you when we're done at the mall. You want us to bring you anything?"

She sneezed again. "No, no, please. Don't bother. My folks are taking pretty good care of me."

It didn't surprise Danny when he heard Sam insist to other people there – most likely her parents and anyone they hired to take care of their daughter – that she was fine, that she just had a cold. He was a bit shocked when he heard an AED operator charge up some paddles threateningly.

Amity Park's strip mall was rather small, but the movie theatre in it was enough to make it pretty entertaining.

Danny walked alongside Tucker into the theatre, going intangible when he was about to walk into a trash can. "She's gotta be sick if she's missing **Dead Teacher IV**_._"

Tucker nodded. "'This time, it's personal.'"

Two girls were admiring the **Sayonara Pussycat** display not too far away. A third girl, Paulina, came up and admired it as well, a bit envious.

It's as though envy isn't a bad thing.

"**Sayonara Pussycat **is so cute! Why can't I be that popular?" She asked it to no one in particular. Yet close by was a certain ghost. Desiree let her power surround Paulina and let the girl change in something akin to the anime cat.

As Paulina began to spread her influence of anime chibi-ness, Danny and Tucker stared at her with some slight disgust. This _was_ a girl that they had fantasized dating a few times.

"Tucker, I –" He stopped as he took the Fenton Thermos out of Tucker's hand, who was resigned in his expression.

"Do what you gotta do. I'll get seats." The beret-wearing boy walked off, Danny not noticing his sadness.

Danny felt his body go into its ghost mode, most likely taking on the appearance of Phantom's true form, and flew at Paulina.

No wonder it's a Cardinal Sin.

* * *

Danny sighed as he left the movie theatre, his ghost sense going off again. Looking around, he saw Desiree again, the female ghost quickly flying away.

"Jeez, lady, don't you ever take a break?" His attention was also caught by the flying car in the air-

"Flying car?"

_**That's not normal?**_

_Shut up. _As he went to attend to that, he heard Tucker's voice, right under him.

"Don't worry, dude. I got this."

Danny stopped flying for a moment, just to float. "Tucker?"

_**Something ominous. Why would Tucker ever want ghost powers?**_

_Let's ignore the 'why'. What about the 'how'?_

* * *

Danny sighed. He should have known that Tucker would just want the ghost powers for the fun, the entertainment that he could conjure up for himself whenever he wanted. He had wanted to do that in the beginning; with Phantom, he wasn't lonely and he could enjoy himself more than he had for a long time. The justice in life kicked in though. If Spider-Man hadn't listened to his Uncle Ben, would New York have been overrun by a kid with spider powers, haunting the world with cobwebs in the face?

Those were just powers, though. Danny sometimes felt a hole in his chest. It had intensified during the accident with the ghost portal and he had asked Phantom about it.

_**You're looking for your Purpose**_.

_I thought-_

_**You'd find it on your own… I might be a part of your Purpose, but I do not know what it is… I'm sorry.**_

Had Tucker not found his Purpose either? Well, they were only fourteen, babes in the eyes of adults and barely conceived embryos in the eyes of witches.

Maybe it was not the best time to think of things like that. He'd talk to Babazita after school.

* * *

Danny sighed, sniffling. Sam's cold was a strong one, he'd give it that. The park was relatively empty and the wishing well was clear. Well, it was a fountain, but beggars can't be choosers.

"If you're trying to snag a wishing ghost, what better place than a wishing well?" He felt clever, something not felt in a year. Shame what psychological pharmaceuticals can do to an eager mind. His quarter fell into the water, breaking the blurry reflection of the boy that it had been casting, and nothing occurred.

"Dang it," he muttered before sneezing. He turned to walk away but didn't get too far before another man muttered a wish before dropping his coin into the crisp water. Danny's ghost sense went off and he turned to grab the man, his grey suit covered in Desiree's smoky energy, away from the harem woman's ghost.

"Oh, no, you don't," he protested, his now green eyes glaring at his foe. Phantom's powers were coursing through him, his senses heightened in compensation as his human body grew more weak fighting his cold.

Two halves always attempt to compensate in a manner such as this.

"Young intruder," Desiree scolded in a venom-laced tone, her form completely green and practically featureless before solidifying itself in the body that Danny was beginning to recognize. "You dare to interfere with my spellbinding?"

"Money isn't everything!" The man Danny saved ran off screaming. You would think in a town with ghosts always on the loose that people might want to defend themselves, but people are not so predictable.

"Listen, Desiree," Danny said firmly, turning to the ghost woman. "I want you to take away Tucker's ghost powers pronto."

"I cannot," she said in certainty. "By noon tomorrow, your friend's fate will be sealed." She cackled and Danny felt anger boil in his heart as she spoke. "His jealousy will transform him forever into the most powerful ghost boy in the world!"

"Tuck? He's not that jealous. Is he?" His resigned expression from the movie theatre, his trying to get back at everyone that made him feel bad at some point and pranking kids that didn't have what he had – ghost powers. Was that how Tucker saw him – flaunting his abilities that he gained from an electrocution accident? What he had seen as a curse and then a blessing, Tucker saw as an unfair advantage.

"More than you know. Tomorrow, his jealousy and frustration will cement into rage and rebellion. He will be complete." As she began to fly away, pleased and smug, Danny grabbed her by her tail. This was his universe. No one would ruin it.

"You change him back!"

Desiree turned with cold, rage-filled eyes. Danny could swear he had seen that expression before. She looked as though some powerful memory had come upon her, ripping open something that she had long since cast away in the recesses of her mind. For a ghost of a harem, he could imagine what she had faced in her living days, a thought emphasized as she spoke.

"You dare lay a hand on me? No man may lay a hand on me unless I wish it!"

His heart panged, but he ignored it. Her actions were not justified.

"Yeah? How about a fist?"

* * *

The next day, when Tucker went through the Fenton Ghost Catcher, Danny felt every bit of jealousy leave Tucker's body. It was a strange sort of release, like saying good-bye to a dead relative as the gravediggers finally lowered the casket. In this case, it was a human, one that Danny had such a strong connection to, and he never wanted to lose that.

Danny remembered something from when he was small. Tucker had mentioned how cool it was that his parents stayed at home, all the time; he never had to wait to be picked up from school. Danny knew how to work a computer and how to shoot a gun before Tucker even thought of those things.

Tucker, in turn, became the most tech-savvy of the three of them once middle school came around.

Tucker had been envious the whole time.

"Danny, I'm really sorry." Tucker looked as if he were going to cry, feeling guilt over everything that he had done and what he had unintentionally allowed Desiree to do. "None of that would have happened if I wasn't so jealous."

"Or if I had been a little less of a show-off around you." Danny held out his hand.

"Friends?"

The other boy's hand held his tightly.

"The best."

_Phantom, we're going to have to be way more careful._

_**Okay.**_

It was the first restraint that Danny placed on Phantom that the ghost did not see as justified.

* * *

The Scriptwriter and his son were playing in the park outside their home. The tot was playing in the sandbox, getting his small hands dirty with his play.

The writer smiled and looked down at his books. Reference materials and notebooks sat on either side of him, all for the sake of his son's script. He looked down at his list of the Decalogue and saw the last of the ten.

Tenth Term of the Decalogue - "You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour's"

You ask this of humans?

The Scriptwriter sighed, hearing the readers of his script read aloud the Tenth Commandment over his shoulder.

That seems to be a joke.

"I guess it does." He called out to his son. They were finished with the park for the day.


End file.
